


Dead to (Most of) the World

by 172



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Batman: Under the Red Hood (2010), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Alternate Universe - Monster Hunters, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Brotherly Love, Demons, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Jason Todd Has Issues, Jason Todd is A Ghost, Tim Drake Needs a Hug, Vampires, his issues are that he's a ghost
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-22
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:47:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25449334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/172/pseuds/172
Summary: Jason Todd is 58% dead. Tim Drake talks to ghosts. That's the story.Until it isn't anymore.Suddenly, they're running from the FBI, hunting for a body, and trying to exorcise a demon who just so happens to be Jason's new little brother's grandpa, and holy shit, everything just got WAY complicated WAY fast.
Relationships: Cassandra Cain & Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd & Damian Wayne, Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd & Bruce Wayne & Damian Wayne, Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Comments: 6
Kudos: 112





	Dead to (Most of) the World

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! So I started a monster hunting au! yay!
> 
> I probably won't be able to update super regularly until I'm done writing my other (hella long) story, which has about ten more chapters for me to bang out, so it'll be a little while. But I really hope everyone likes this, because holy crap, I am having so much fun writing it!
> 
> I love me a small, sweet, scared Tim as much as the next person but I ALSO love me a small, sassy, smartass Tim too, so that's what y'all are getting with this one. Please, please, please, drop your ideas in the comments! Let me know what you like, what you dislike, what scenes you desperately need to see! Enjoy!

Jason Todd was super fucking dead. 

He was at least 86% sure of that happening. 

There were a of couple things pointing him to this conclusion, but the main one was probably the fact that he was literally floating above his own bloody body. 

Another piece of evidence pointing to his dead-ness was his brother, Dick, holding his (absolutely brained) head in his lap, sobbing. 

Jason’s entire body felt staticky, like pins and needles, like a TV glitch on an old CRT monitor. He tried to reach his arm out, tried to grab at Dick or poke himself or scream, or anything, ANYTHING to say “I’m here, I’m here, why can’t you SEE me, I’m RIGHT HERE, you massive FUCKER!” 

He just…couldn’t. 

His arms weren’t moving right, they felt weird, they felt too light, and why weren’t his feet touching the ground? 

Why couldn’t anyone see him?

Someone was shouting, in the distance, someone screaming that they needed to go. 

Who’s voice was that?

Bruce! That was Bruce, that was his…kind of dad? Where was Bruce?

Jason tried to spin in a circle, tried to locate him, but to no avail. He couldn’t spin, he couldn’t move very well at all. There was smoke, coming from somewhere. Fire too. 

Nothing made sense, why wasn’t anything making sense? If he was dead, then why was he still right here, watching Dick sob and hearing Bruce shouting things? And…and was that Cass? 

That WAS Cass, Cas was flat out sprinting towards Dick, towards Jason’s body, she was…no she wasn’t yelling but she was signing something incredibly dramatically, which was Cass’s version of yelling. 

*We need to go!* she was signing, over and over again. *We need to go, we need to go!* 

Jason suddenly felt like there was something pulling him back, pulling him away, some sort of cord or rope, but he struggled, fought against it, staring down at Dick and his body and Cass, and now Bruce, face drawn, trying to pull Dick away. 

When had Bruce shown up? Why was he pulling Dick?

How had he DIED? 

What had HAPPENED? 

Jason kept trying to pull against the stupid-ass tether pulling him away, pulling him away from his sort-of-maybe family, but it was more insistent now, yanking him backwards, where there was nothing but bright blue light. 

Bright blue light. 

His eyes were full of it. Jason tried to scream, tried to call out, to fight away from the light, but it was useless. It snaked up his nostrils, into his ears, soaked into his skin, and then there was nothing but white. 

“Jason!” Dick shouted, voice carrying across the chasm he was standing at the edge of. “Jason, it isn’t real! It’s-”

But then Dick was gone, the edge of the cliff was crumbling, and Jason fell and fell and fell. 

Suddenly, he was standing in a bathroom, feet stark against ugly green-yellow tiles. “M-mom?” he asked, and his voice was high pitched, why was it so high pitched? But there was Catherine, there was his mother, splayed out across the ugly tiles, glassy eyes wide open and unseeing. 

“Mom!” he screamed, but ants were crawling up his throat. “Mom!” 

She blinked, sat up, opened her mouth, and Jason wanted to say something, he wanted to talk to his mother, but the ants were crawling across his lips, out of his nose, out of his ears. They pressed behind his eyes and Jason shrieked. 

Someone was calling his name, someone in the distance, and he craned his neck, trying to hear them, but the wind swept it away, and suddenly, he was under a bed, palms pressed flat to the floor. 

There was yelling, a lot of it. 

Two pairs of feet danced in the kitchen dangerously, one in work boots and one in flats. That was Catherine, that was Willis. A bottle shattered. Somebody cried out. 

Suddenly, the windows all exploded outwards and Jason was sucked out, sucked away, into a massive vacuum. 

It was cold out here, that’s the first thing he noticed. There was a girl in the vacuum, it was Cass. Why was she here again? Cass was waving her hands at him but his eyes couldn’t catch up, they couldn’t read the words she was making. 

He was underwater, tangled in slimy green weeds, and Dick’s voice was garbled, but he could hear it. 

“Jason!” he was saying. “Jason come ON you need to WAKE UP! He’s a Trickster God, Jay! Wake UP!” 

His soccer cleats? Jason didn’t play soccer, why would Dick tell him not to forget his soccer cleats. Jason shook his head, confused. Nothing was making very much sense at the bottom of the ocean. Was something wrong?

And then he woke up. 

The bright blue light was almost all the way gone, except for a tiny little thread of it on the ground. 

Jason turned, looking around, spinning in a circle. He could move now, so that was a plus. The downside was that he had no idea where he was or what was going on. 

But Bruce always told them, environment first. Inspect the area before anything else. The edict was supposed to apply to like, looking for clues or searching for the Monster of the Day, but it worked here too. 

There was a lawn, kind of. A couple of trees. And he himself was standing right in the middle of a circle of very, very dead grass. Jason spun again, staring at the perfect circle. Right behind him was a crude wooden cross. 

He knelt down, inspecting it, and almost threw right the fuck up. 

Because that was HIS name on the cross. That was HIS name, Jason Peter Todd Wayne, carved out roughly across the wood with nothing else. He looked down at his feet. 

One, Jason was shocked to find that his feet were completely see-through. Two, he wanted to barf. The dirt beneath him was disturbed, raised slightly into a mound. This was his GRAVE. 

What…the fuck? 

Jason didn’t REMEMBER dying, though. He remembered waking up, piling into Bruce’s hideous and embarrassing station wagon after checking out of their motel, heading towards the next hunt, something driving a crazy number of people to insanity. 

He remembers telling Dick to shut the fuck up when he started belting out ABBA at the top of his lungs, remembers getting chewed out by Bruce for cursing at Jason, remembers Cass giving him a small fist bump where Bruce couldn’t see. 

He’d been reading A Case of Need, was halfway through. Cass had shown him a new ballet move she’d picked up when they stopped for gas. Bruce had berated Dick for purchasing all of the gas station convenience store’s Twinkies, but then eaten four of them. 

But after that, Jason can’t remember anything. 

He stays crouched on the mound-on his GRAVE-trying to just…remember. He can’t. He remembers driving away from the gas station, making fun of his sister and then his brother and then Bruce, but he doesn’t remember getting out of the car again. 

He just…it’s blank. Completely. So Jason has no clue how he died. 

Except, there’s this glowing thread of blue light leading away from his grave, and he remembers blue light. Somewhere in his brain, there is a vacant memory of an incredibly bright, all consuming blue light. So Jason follows. 

At first, he’d just walking, but weirdly, since he’s see through, and his feet aren’t really touching the ground. He winds through the trees of whatever forest he’s apparently been fucking buried in, and as he walks, the thread of blue light disappears behind him. 

Huh. 

But then, after a little bit, he starts hovering, kinda. What the fuck? 

Jason’s floating, a few feet off the ground, stationary. Well how the fuck is he supposed to follow the fucking thread now?

But he tips forward, just a little bit, and holy fuck, he can motherfucking FLY!

So maybe this whole ghost gig isn’t way too bad if he can fucking fly?

Because that’s what he is. A ghost. Jason should know, he hunts ‘em. He HAS hunted ‘em for years now, three years. 

With Bruce and Dick and Cass, he’s hunted ghosts, low-level demons, werewolves, vampires, a handful of super obscure creatures from different folklore that somehow wound up in the U.S. of A. A dragon from China, once, which was really fucking cool. 

But now, apparently, he WAS one. A mother-to-the-fucking GHOST. Not only that, as far as he could tell, Jason was an apparition, which meant that somehow, he was visible. To people. To anyone. 

Apparitions were rare in the first place, and only came from hella strong imprints, which, 70% of the time, meant someone with one hell of a grudge. 

A) As far as he could tell, Jason did NOT have some massive grudge to fulfill.

B) For whatever reason, he was, like, a FULL-TIME apparition, which was wild, since most ghosts only could make themselves visible at an emotional crux. Besides being pissed he was dead and ridiculously confused, Jason wasn’t exactly at an emotional crux right now. 

But the only thing he really had to go on right now was a goddamned thread of blue light, so Jason sighed, and dipped a little further forward, until he was zipping right along, following the thread of blue out of the forest. 

So, sure he was dead and all, but flying? Yeah, that shit was cool as FUCK. Jason zipped through the air at an absolutely insane speed, letting out a tentative whoop, and then, when nothing happened, another one, much louder this time.

The blue line never disappeared from his vision, even when he drifted above the clouds to avoid being seen by anyone. Yeah okay, so pros? He could fly. Cons? He was fucking dead. 

Oh my god, he was fucking dead, and Jason didn’t even know HOW. And what about his family? Dick and Cass and Bruce? Were they alive? Were they okay?

No, no, SOMEONE had to have buried him, carved his name into that wooden cross. So at the very VERY least, not ALL of them were…dead. But were they OKAY then? 

Maybe this blue thread led right to Bruce and Dick and Cass! Maybe it would end at whatever motel they were at now, and he’d just slot right back into the family, only this time he’d have an excuse to not have to help dig graves or clean guns, since obviously, a ghost can’t hold a shovel OR a gun. 

Fuck, wait! Then that would make him eternally assigned to RESEARCH duty, the absolute WORST monster-hunting job, so maybe he needed to find a way to hold things. 

Or maybe the blue line didn’t lead to his family. THEN what was he supposed to do? Maybe it led right to the pearly goddamn gates, and this was the end. What would he do then? Dick and Bruce and Cass, they NEEDED him. They needed help!

Bruce couldn’t be the only normie, and Cass needed a brother who didn’t sing ABBA in the car, and Dick, god, Dick would run absolutely rampant if nobody was there to call him a dumbass shithead dickwad idiot every time he did something dumb. 

Jason NEEDED to be with them, they needed help! There couldn’t only be three people in the crusade, it wasn’t fair, it didn’t work! If Jason weren’t there, they’d need to redo the chores assignments, spread themselves thinner, and oh god, who was gonna COOK!? 

Bruce would blow up the whole motel, Cass would just flat-out Not, and Dick would make an attempt, burn everything, and then just eat cereal for every meal after that. Jason needed to be there, someone needed to cook and insult Dick and admire the ballet dances that Cass learned. 

It wasn’t FAIR, he couldn’t be DEAD. He couldn’t be gone, he couldn’t just be a ghost. There were hundreds and hundreds of hunts all across the country that needed to be taken care of, hundreds of people to be saved, hundreds of ghosts and demons and various supernatural creatures to be burned or sent on their way or killed or exiled or exorcised. 

Jason was a crusader, he was a hunter, he had a purpose, so this just…it wasn’t FAIR. 

He flew after the blue line for some undefined amount of time that he didn’t bother trying to keep track of, until all of a sudden, he looked down, and the line had stopped. 

Just ended, right there on the ground below him, at some massive fucking mansion. 

Was this heaven’s reception hall? Hell’s? Or maybe, he thought with a thrill as he floated down towards the front of the mansion, or maybe his family’s here, hunting something right now! 

But the further he descended towards the house, the more these thoughts dissipated. For one, there was no sign of Bruce’s ancient and hideous brown station wagon. For two, the cases Bruce and them usually took on were much less…high profile. 

Because this place was a fuckin’ castle. 

Rich-people big-city cases they usually left to the ghost-hunters-for-hire, who would be invited in by someone superstitious to investigate, and as a result, did NOT have to worry about being arrested. 

Bruce, on the other hand, was kind of Wanted. Like, alive and all, but still. Not exactly a friend of the feds. 

The blue light stopped right at the huge front doors, which were fucking excessive if you asked him. Just one of the huge gates could’ve paid his childhood rent for a year. But the blue light led him here, so whatever. 

Jason floated right through the doors, which was a terrifying and then supremely awesome experience, because even if it felt like his stomach dropped outta his ass, HE JUST FLOATED THROUGH A FUCKING DOOR. 

The house inside, of course, looked a step below the motherfucking Buckingham Palace, with marble floors and a literal double staircase. But it also seemed empty. 

Like, completely. 

It freaked Jason out a little bit, and he was entirely dead, so. 

But there was…something. There was something almost pulling him, like a magnet. Jason had a vague flash of being pulled by something, being yanked, and he tried to grasp at it, but slipped outta his fingertips like butter. 

This was different, this time though, he knew it. It was a gentle sort of feeling, all vague. And this place was a goddamn palace, so Jason let the feeling beam him up. 

He followed it up the double staircase, let it draw him slowly through the various hallways, past the various doorways, and now, there were faint voices that Jason could make out. 

Like, a bunch of them, all murmuring over one another, and Jason couldn’t focus on one long enough to hear what it was saying. 

It occurred to him that he might be about to crash an important meeting of old rich people and make ‘em all shit their pants, but the thought was brief because he really didn’t give a shit. He was DEAD, what were they gonna do? Call the cops? 

Fat fucking chance. 

The feeling tugging him stopped abruptly, right outside of a door at the very end of one of the numerous hallways. Behind the door, the clamoring voices were loud and insistent, but weirdly enough, Jason still couldn’t manage to hear what any one of them was saying. 

However, SOMETHING wanted him to go into this room, so Jason sighed, floating outside the door. Maybe whatever was in here was a clue to how he died? So he steeled himself, muttered a few choice words, and phased right through the door. 

The scene inside had NOT been what he was expecting. 

It was a bedroom, only a very boring, very gothic-vampire-esque bedroom, with literally nothing but a huge bed and a desk with a computer and some papers. THAT wasn’t the part that surprised him, though. 

No, the part that made him utter “What in the actual FUCK?!” was the massive horde of ghosts surrounding a tiny little kid who was curled in a ball with hands over his ears, sobbing silently. 

The clamoring and murmuring and wailing halted abruptly, and every single ghost in the room (which was a solid dozen, at least) turned to face him, faces pale and drawn. Holy shit. They were ALL apparitions. The kid didn’t look up from where he was balled up. 

“What in the ACTUAL FUCK?” Jason said again, this time louder, because what the fuck else was he supposed to do? It was like a shitty horror film, there was NEVER enough energy in ONE SPACE to create a DOZEN full body apparitions. 

They stared at him for a long beat, and then one of them, some stooping old hag, started fucking HISSING, like a tea kettle, or a demon about to be exorcised. 

“The fuck are YOU doing?” Jason asked her, kinda miffed. Then the REST of the ghost posse started hissing too, staring at him, hissing like the world’s most demented snakes. 

The kid in a ball, looked up, brow furrowed in confusion, face all tear streaked. Jason supposed being surrounded by ghosts would do that to you, but then his attention was stolen when the ghosts started fucking VIBRATING, hissing louder and louder. 

The further they moved away from the kid, the less solid they seemed to get, which was strange, but they parted around Jason like he was Moses, and by the time they’d reach the door, they’d vanish. 

Jason rushed out the doorway, looking down the hallway for the ghosts, but they’d disappeared completely. It was strange. 

HE was a ghost, right? Like, he was DEAD dead. So why couldn’t he see the other fucking dead people? 

A small sniffle came from behind him, and Jason remembered the crying kid, and floated back into the room, still confused as hell, but now confused as hell with a GOAL-get the kid to stop crying and then interrogate him as a witness. 

Well, okay. MAYBE he was dead, but that didn’t mean he had to give up being a monster-hunting vigilante. And SOMETHING had clearly happened, and the kid was a witness. 

Jason floated towards the kid, who’s hands had migrated from covering his ears to wrapping around his knees. He sniffed again. 

“Hey kid,” Jason tried, crouching down. The kid shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut. 

“Please, please, I don’t wanna hear, I don’t wanna hear.” He whimpered, flexing his fingers around his knees. Jason crossed his arms. 

“Hear what?” he asked. Hey, at least he was TALKING instead of just WAILING like the other ghosts. Or, Jason thought, or maybe he actually IS wailing, and this kid can’t hear a word he’s saying, just like the other ghosts. Shit, that’d suck. 

Then how was he supposed to talk to Bruce and Dick and Cass once he found them? What would he do then? 

But the kid responded. “I really, really don’t wanna hear how you died anymore.” The fuck? Is that what the other ghosts were saying? 

No, no they were just wailing and Jason was the only dead one here, thank you very much. No way some kid could hear what they were taking about. 

“Yo, kid, I don’t even KNOW how I died.” This made the kid open his eyes and squint at him through the little tears still running from his eyes. 

He sniffed a little. “W…what?” and then he squinted a little more, but this time less in an I’m-trying-not-to-cry way and more in a there’s-something-I-don’t-understand way. “Then…do you know why they were calling you that?”

Well THAT certainly made Jason do a double-take. Calling him WHAT? The wailing ghosts? They were talking shit about him and he couldn’t even HEAR it?

“Woah, kid, calling me what?” he asked, and the kid scrubbed the tears away from his face and twisted his mouth into a little frown. 

“You’re a ghost, aren’t you? Could you not hear them calling you an abomination?” 

Um…NO, he could NOT hear that. But the way the kid had said that was strange. YEAH he was dead, so did that mean other ghosts could talk to each other? Also, how did the KID hear it then? As far as Jason could tell, he was pretty alive looking. Like, fairly not dead. 

“Nope, dude, I just heard a bunch of wailing.” The kid pulled his legs away from his chest and crossed them. “How did YOU hear them?” the kid shrugged, absently tugging at a loose thread on his shirt. 

“I dunno, I just always have.” 

Jason had no clue what that meant. A kid who could talk to ghosts? Okay, not THAT weird on the Jason Todd Weirdness Scale. There were plenty of scryers and psychics and witches that could commune with the dead if they wanted to, so that wasn’t the weird part. 

The weird part was that this kid, as far as Jason could tell, was not currently performing an incredibly elaborate ritual nor staring into a crystal ball. In fact, he was quite preoccupied with unraveling the hem of his t-shirt and not all that bothered with the fact that a ghost was sitting in front of him. So…weird. But not quite shapeshifting zombie with a thing for feet weird. 

Jason sighed and tapped at his knee. “Hey, kid, what’s your name?” he asked, not really getting anywhere with the interrogation plan. He’d always been a shitty interrogator, that was Dick’s strong point, even IF he was a Romani half-vampire. 

The kid looked up at him in a confused way, hands stilling on his shirt. “Uh, Tim. Drake. What…” he cleared his throat. “What about you?” 

“Jason Todd. Why are you looking at me like that?” he gestured to Tim’s furrowed brows and twisted mouth. Tim flushed a little bit, looking back down at his shirt, but not actually picking at it anymore. 

“Um, ghosts just don’t usually…ask my name. They just wanna talk about how they died.” Tim looked up again, flush only halfway gone. “How come you don’t know how you died?” 

Jason sighed, shrugging with his palms up. “Shit, Tim, I dunno. I wake up at my grave and there’s this freaky blue line, and you’re at the end of it. You tell me, YOU’RE the ghost whisperer.” 

The kid scowled at him, which was hilarious, because he looked maybe ten years old and had massive Bambi eyes. Really the scowl was more adorable than anything else. 

“I COULD tell you, smartass.” He said hotly, crossing his arms and glaring. “But now I’m not gonna.” What the fuck was up with this kid? Jason had several main questions. 

Number one was why some kid was hanging out alone in a freaking castle mansion. Number one wasn’t really all that important right now, but it still made the list. 

Number two was how and why Tim could just casually chat with any ghost he wanted to without having to DO anything. Jason had literally never heard of that before. And as far as he could tell, Tim wasn’t like, a demon or anything, just some normie kid with freaky Ouija powers. 

Number three was how the fuck said Ouija kid would be able to tell him why he couldn’t remember how he died, and all of the strings attached to that question, like why he’d ASK if he already KNEW. Number three was the only question Jason was really able to address at this specific point in time, so that’s the one he went with. 

He sighed. “Wait, okay, I’m sorry. Tell me how?” Tim uncrossed his arms and rolled his eyes, seemingly totally over his ghost paparazzi induced freakout. 

“Well, you gotta gimme your hand, and then I can tell you how dead you are.” The fuck was this ten-year-old on? Acid? Speed? Crack? People couldn’t just TOUCH ghosts, and ALL ghosts were dead. 

“Um, hate to break it to ya Timmy, but I’m fairly sure I’m 100% dead. Since, y’know, I’m a ghost.” Tim rolled his eyes again, distinctly annoyed at this point, which was stupid. JASON should be the annoyed one, given that HE was the one who’d DIED. 

“No, genius, NO ghosts are 100% dead. The 100% dead ones go straight to the Other Side, if you’re stuck as a ghost it’s cuz you aren’t all the way dead.” Jason furrowed his brows. He’d literally never heard this, ever, and the past three years of his life were spent hunting evil spirits and stuff.

If all this was true, SOMEONE would’ve figured it out by now. 

Jason snorted and crossed his arms. “You’re full of it, kid. Are you off your meds or something?” Tim’s glare came back full force, much angrier than before. 

“I’m NOT a schizophrenic!” He all but shouted, before cowing a bit and lowering his voice. “I’m not…I’m not crazy, okay? Like, the least dead ones are solid all the time, like, people can see them. They’re only maybe 80% dead.” 

Oookay. So maybe the crazy joke wasn’t the best idea for a kid who could talk to ghosts, especially when HE was the ghost talking to the kid but sue him. Dying was a shock, okay? He couldn’t help it. it was the TRAUMA. Plus, Tim had just been freaking out, surrounded by a horde of annoying-sounding ghosts, so Jason could probably find it within himself to cut him some slack. 

“Okay, okay kid. So what about like, ghosts that are 90% dead?” Tim eyed him suspiciously for a moment before shrugging. 

“Echoes, cold spots. Maybe, like, talking. They aren’t ever solid though.” That made sense, at least. And Tim didn’t ACTUALLY sound TOTALLY full of shit. Plus, it wasn’t like anyone’d taught him about ghosts, as far as Jason knew. So it was an interpretation. Yeah. 

“So how dead do you think I am?” Jason asked him, and Tim squelched his face up again, looking contemplative. 

“I dunno. 75%, maybe? I mean, you’re solid. And you talk, like, regular. I’ve never met a ghost like you.” When Tim said he talked regular, did that mean he wasn’t constantly going on and on about how he died? Did ALL ghosts do that, because then the afterlife was gonna SUCK. 

But 75% dead didn’t sound so bad. “So the other 25% of me is, like, alive?” Tim just shrugged and bit his lip. 

“I guess. I dunno, really. I just know about the dead part.” Jason sighed again (Tim just really seemed to draw them outta him) and tapped his knees. “Also, I never said you WERE 75% dead, just that you might be.” 

“Well, okay then Captain Poltergeist, how dead am I?” If Tim rolled his eyes any more, Jason was sure they’d pop right outta his head. 

“Don’t call me that. Gimme your hand.” 

“Oh well, if you insist.” He muttered, awkwardly holding out one of his hands to Tim. He didn’t even react, just screwing his face up in concentration, poking his tongue out of his mouth. The kid really was kind of adorable, when he wasn’t being a little bitch. 

Tim didn’t even DO anything, no familiar ritual, no incantations, no eyes rolling back into his head, no NOTHING, just an expression that made him look constipated. That was IT. 

After about twelve seconds of Jason watching Tim do absolutely nothing in bewilderment, he released his hand and looked up at him, confused. 

“Um.” Was all he said. 

“Um what, Timbo? C’mon, what’s the lucky number?” Tim didn’t even REACT to that, just stared at him like a zoo animal, looking like he’d seen a ghost. Which he had. It was a simile. 

“I…you aren’t very dead, Jason.” Is all he said. Well what was THAT supposed to mean?! Jason FELT pretty dead, thank you very much. In fact, he was so dead he had a GRAVE! He was so dead he was a GHOST!

“How can I possibly not be very dead? I’m a GHOST, I am SEE THROUGH!” Tim’s forehead crinkled in distate. 

“Well,” he said, “You aren’t very dead. Only 58%.” 

“How can I only be 58% DEAD and still be a GHOST?” Tim just shrugged, very helpfully. 

“How should I know? It isn’t like I can just look it up.” Now, Jason was getting a little frustrated, because Tim was being a smartass and distinctly not helpful, and also he was STILL super fucking dead. With no clue how he died. 

“Well, okay, is that why I can’t remember how I died?” Tim waved a hand flippantly. 

“You got blown up.” 

Jason choked and wheezed in the least funny way possible. He WHAT?

“Excuse me? I got BLOWN UP?” Tim shrugged and picked at the hem of his shirt, as if he hadn’t just dropped the biggest bomb in the history of fucking EVER, pun definitely NOT intended. 

“You’ll remember. The less dead you are, the longer it takes to remember how you died.” Tim cast a critical eye over him, like he was trying to figure out his shirt size instead of how he FUCKING DIED. “It’ll probably take, like, a month for it to all come back.” 

Jason choked again, only a little less dramatically. He wasn’t sure how he was able to be dead and still choking, but apparently, he was only 58% dead, so maybe that was why. 

“How…how do you even KNOW this?” he asked, because what the fuck ELSE was he supposed to do? 

“I can feel it. Just like I can feel how dead you are.” The fucking hand holding? Was THAT what was going on here? Was Tim some kind of crazy powerful psychic? But no, psychics rarely developed any abilities before adulthood, and they had to actually ACT on them to DO anything. 

“What…what ARE you?” Jason spluttered, completely out of his depth, whereas Tim seemed cool as a fucking cucumber, picking at the carpet now with a fingernail. Now, he looked up and narrowed his eyes mockingly at Jason. 

“Um, a thirteen-year-old human boy who’s still alive. What are YOU?” Jason spluttered some more, still in some sort of shock. When it came to ghosts, spirits, demons, monsters, the supernatural, Jason was usually always in the know, always prepared for whatever beast they were about to face. 

Except here was motherfucking Tim Drake, who, despite the fact that there were still tear stains from earlier on his face, appeared completely unbothered. It was ridiculous. Jason fucking hated it. 

“I’m…I’m fifteen! I’m dead!” Is all he managed to say, sounding a lot less collected than Tim was, even if he was two entire years younger than him. 

Tim rolled his eyes AGAIN and sighed, standing up from the carpet, finally. Jason followed, watching as the kid plucked a book off of his nightstand. 

“Only 58% dead. Look, Jason,” he spun to face him, not looking so cool as a cucumber anymore, worrying at his bottom lip. “I…I talk to a lot of dead people. And I don’t wanna be, like, rude. Or anything. But you’re dead. A lot of people are. A lot of very loud and very depressed people are dead, and they’re always here.”

Tim looked down and then right back up, like he was steeling himself. Jason watched in silence. “They’re ALWAYS here, yelling at me, telling me about how they died, about their dead children, about…about how much pain they’re in. I don’t…I don’t know who you…who you were. Or are.”

The kid really did not look composed at all anymore, gripping the book tightly in his hands. It was Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises. “I don’t know who you…whatever, but they don’t like you. The ghosts. That’s why they aren’t here right now. Because they don’t like you.”

“Gee, thanks.” Jason muttered, but Tim ignored him, rubbing the creased spine of his book. 

“I don’t…I don’t wanna be mean, because you died. But, Jason, you’re dead. You should probably get used to that, before you figure out how. It’d really suck,” and Tim choked a little bit, voice cracking. “It’d really suck if you became like one of them.” He finished, real quiet, eyes turned away. 

It made Jason’s stomach roil uncomfortably. 

He wanted to ask more questions, do you know why you can talk to ghosts, what’s it like, how long, but instead Jason just nodded to the book gripped in Tim’s hands. 

Instead he asked, “Would you…read to me?”

Tim obliged. 

.  
.  
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End file.
